CES 2010: Technology firms gather in Vegas for CES 2010

There are more than 20,000 products on display at this year's CES

LAS VEGAS: Technology firms, press, analysts and buyers are gathering in Las Vegas for the annual Consumer Electronics Show (CES 2010), the world's largest electronics exhibition.

Organisers are hoping that 100,000 visitors will pass though the Las Vegas conference centre to look at the ranges that will appear in the coming year. With over 20,000 products on display there's something for everyone but, as ever at CES, certain themes have emerged.

On the hardware front the buzzword is tablets, be they electronic book readers or fully fledged computing tablets. No-one is expecting Apple to announce its much-rumoured tablet, but Microsoft may well throw its weight behind a tablet to steal Apple's thunder, possibly HP's latest offering.

Lenovo has already unveiled its hybrid laptop/tablet and others are expected to follow. But Lenovo's move away from mainstream operating systems has also sparked debate. The prevailing view is that most consumers won't touch a portable computer, as opposed to a smartphone, that won't run Windows.

As more and more manufacturers pile into this space, the question of the acceptability of non-standard operating systems is in sharp focus.

The hardcore technology visionaries insist that the operating system is becoming irrelevant as more people move to web applications. Others insist that that day is a long way off and consumers are still only happy with what they know.

On the software side, the theme is applications everywhere. There isn't a TV manufacturer here that doesn't have, or have plans for, a TV that can access internet applications. We'll be seeing Google, Twitter, Netflix and a host of other applications on new hardware.

While the computer is still king of the applications market, the consumer electronics industry wants to get a piece of the action and make the internet available pretty much wherever you are. The chip companies love the idea, and we'll see major pushes of the Atom and Cell processors into devices that don't currently have access to them.

Finally the other main theme is 3D. For the past year the industry has been making moves to push 3D displays into the mainstream. Four of the top 12 grossing films this year have been 3D, and the industry is keen to push the technology.

However, this isn't the first time that the industry has tried the 3D route. Over a decade ago the public failed to warm to the idea, and it is far from certain that they will this time either.

While 3D is all well and good for the cinema there are, we suspect, very few people who want to sit in their homes wearing Joe 90 glasses and fewer still who'd be prepared to do the same in a sports bar. As for the corporate world, there seems to be no compelling case for the technology.

CES is about more than these themes, however, and we'll be reporting on the latest technology to come out of the show. There are bound to be some surprises; it wouldn't be CES without them.